Review – Snatched (2017)

Some love the comedy of Amy Schumer and some don’t; I understand the argument for both sides. However, one leading lady I haven’t seen in years is Goldie Hawn, who plays Schumer’s mother in Snatched. I’m still in question as to why Kate Hudson wasn’t the daughter. That being said, I wasn’t sure about this film before I saw it. I’d seen enough trailers for it to know that it just looked like a typical R-Rated comedy – which is possibly the worst kind there is right now. Let’s first talk about the plot.

After her boyfriend dumps her on the eve of their exotic vacation, impetuous dreamer Emily Middleton persuades her ultra-cautious mother, Linda to travel with her to paradise. Polar opposites, Emily and Linda realize that working through their differences as mother and daughter – in unpredictable, hilarious fashion – is the only way to escape the wildly outrageous jungle adventure they have fallen into. – Written by 20th Century Fox (IMDb)

I’ll mention the first two things that come to mind while watching. First of all, it’s not all that funny. It’s neither the mother or daughter that really warranted a laugh from me, but from the agoraphobic son/brother living at home that got me to laugh. His interactions with the U.S. Consulate officer were definitely pretty funny – but they were far and few between. The second thing that I noticed was that there should certainly be more chemistry between two actresses that are supposedly supposed to be mother and daughter – even if they are opposites, and what I mostly felt was the opposite of any chemistry between these two women.

It’s not really looking that well from first impressions alone, but what happens when we break down Snatched to interpret the stars? Let’s get into it.

First up, we have the people category, which, in theory, should have a decent enough score, given how the two main leads are family members, which automatically demands certain importance. The acting itself ranged from bad to mediocre at best, so that’s not great. The characters could’ve been more memorable if done better. While I did like the cast in the film, it was really irrelevant, since the characters they played weren’t memorable. As for everyone’s importance? I think importance was split into groups. So the mother and daughter acted as one. The human traffickers acted as one. The U.S. Consulate and brother acted as one – instead of everyone having their own unique reason for being there. I already mentioned the chemistry, which just wasn’t there for anyone. It wasn’t bad chemistry, just not good.

Next up, we look at the writing category. When looking at any comedy, the dialogue should be good, since that’s where a lot of the comedy comes in. However, you have a mix of both spoken and physical comedy, most of which don’t work as well as intended. So only half points for the dialogue here. This is also a film that really seems to rehash the same joke over and over again, making the film feel longer than it actually is, thus making a bit of an unnecessarily convoluted in parts. How was the story? What story? Nothing about this film screams deep or meaningful. They could’ve fit some really good mother/daughter messages in there, but nope. Originality-wise, I’d say I can’t think of any specific film that is exactly like this…but a lot of the film still feels like you have seen it before. Finally, was it interesting? I’d say only partially – and that mostly had to do with the cast.

As far as behind-the-scenes goes, everything is exactly as you’d expect from a random comedy like this one. It’s as-advertised, but nothing else sticks out because it doesn’t need to. Nothing visually speaking stood out. Neither the directing or editing seemed as if they had any real challenge or difficulty, and the music was as-needed. Nothing stood out as great. It was as-advertised, which is typical for a comedy.

Narratively speaking, the film was okay. Apart from not having any real falling action or a return to any new norm, the film had everything else in place. The introduction showed us why there’s a vacation in the first place and why Amy’s character chooses her mother as her traveling companion. The inciting incident is mostly when they get down there, though it’s more like when they get “snatched”. The obstacles are pretty simple. The whole movie is about these two women using their craziness to fight off a real threat. The climax brings everything together in the end in a mostly satisfying way. All is well.

Ouch. Like I said, it falls pretty hard in a lot of the parts that it tries to succeed in. The only part that I really thought was funny was the side story with the brother and the U.S. Consulate officer. Everything else almost feels like it’s trying too hard. So, I’ll at least give the “fun” subcategory half points, but everything else gets zero. I wouldn’t buy this, care to own this, I don’t feel like talking about it, it doesn’t ever suck me in and I don’t even think I’ll want to rewatch it at any point, either. Eek.

Alright, now we move onto the five specialty questions that I asked before seeing the film. First and foremost, we look at the genre-specific questions. It’s a comedy, so how was the humor. For the third time in this review, the comedy was fine for the side story, but nothing clicked for the main story. How was the action? It was fine, but it was much less than it could have easily been. How was the adventure? Well, it was technically there, but I never really felt that sense of adventure that adventure films usually have. How was Goldie Hawn? I haven’t seen her in a long, long time. She was fine, but literally, anyone else could play her, making this a film I won’t bring up when people talk about the actress. Was it halfway decent? I will say it was halfway…halfway decent. It had plenty of opportunities to be better in different parts, but it just never clicks. So all in all, it was a disappointing film, but not that disappointing. We all come to expect this from R-Rated comedies.